Because when you put a sign up next to a freeway, people will read it until somebody takes it down.

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Monday, June 09, 2008

Busted!

(All signs posted in San Diego) This one’s worth clicking on to see full size: 805 Southbound around City Heights. Placed in less than fifteen seconds using two wire coat hangars and a bungee. Up for at least an hour.

While I was taking pictures of this one (I-5 South Downtown,) an SDPD cruiser pulled over and the cop asked me if I’d put it up, so I said “Yeah.” He said, “Nice work.” so I said “Thanks!” and then he just drove off without saying another word.

I watched to see if he was going to take it down and he didn’t. Cool guy.

Pedestrian bridge over the I-15 North in Kensington, slipped sign in between iron rails and chain link, took less than five seconds to post. Duration unknown.I-8 heading East. This one took me by surprise because I didn’t put it up. Whoever did though, damn nice work. You could see the thing for at least a quarter mile – long enough to get my camera, turn it on and get the picture. It looked gorgeous and was still up at three p.m.I-5 heading north, one of my favorite spots, behind the Mountain Bike Warehouse: practically impossible to miss by five lanes of heavy traffic and utterly invisible to everyone else. By duct-taping a coat hangar to the top of the sign and then dropping it over the spikes, the actual posting time was about one second. Even though it’s only about twenty feet from the freeway, you’d have to drive about fifteen miles to take it down.

I-15 South, six feet long , slid between rails and fencing. Although “Peace on Earth” signs are relatively toothless politically, they sure stay up for a long time. I’m still seeing ones I put up in December. Maybe that’s the thing to do: stick up “Peace on Earth” signs for awhile and just try to reach as many people as I can.

We're engaged in an information war: On one side you’ve got the corporate media backed by billions of dollars and the entire military industrial complex. On the other side you’ve got a bunch of artists and activists with almost no funding or broadcast media access whatsoever. In the middle you’ve got freeways being driven by probably half the population: millions and millions of people with nothing to look at except corporate billboards and graffiti. We need to start taking better advantage of this.

Collectively the signs on this page cost about two dollars and took about five hours to make and post. They were probably seen by a quarter million people.

Since before the war started, I've been baffled and angry at the couldn't-give-a-shit attitude of so many Americans. It's obvious that this has changed, and I believe you've played a small but important part in making that happen. Thanks from an admirer in Canada